Falling Deep-ly

August 1st

Thursday

12:00 am

Amira's pov

"The sign says keep out." I voiced out just in case she haven't noticed. If I would still try to change her mind, this is the final straw. To my surprise, she only ignored the warning sign then entered the broken window on the left side.

"Let's go in opposite directions and meet up at the fountain later. It'll be faster that way." Lara suggested. She then dragged a small and flat folding industrial trolley she was carrying earlier inside the dust-covered dark-gray marble floor.

"Wait, I don't have a flashlight." I used that reasoning so I can be with her but she only handed me another one and proceeded to the left wing.

"Problem solved." She said before leaving for real. I'm scared though my pride was keeping me from whining childish things. Thinking that we could find something valuable without having to pay gave me courage to drag my feet deeper into the right wing.

Just calculating a couple of rooms on my side alone and two more floors to cover till dawn was already giving me a headache. We haven't got much time to spare so I went for the farthest place to trespass first.

As soon as I pushed the creaking unlocked door open, I blamed my dust allergies from sneezing so loud, it echoed through the silent corridors and awakened another large group of bats, forcing me to dodge them all in an instant.

"Holy shit..." I muttered to myself and puffed a sigh after the storm has passed. I groaned and cleared some of the thick cobwebs from my side bangs.

"Be careful not to break anything valuable!" Lara yelled from the nearest room to the main door.

"Yeah! Thanks for the concern on everything but me!" I yelled back.

"Of course, that's how much I love you!" She gestured a flying kiss and giggled before shutting the door close behind her.

I shook my head and left the door accessible for later. The last thing I'd want is to struggle opening it open once I leave the room with my hands full.

As I ran my gaze around, I've noticed all four long divider wooden shelves where still intact on all corners of the room, however, the books were scattered all over the place.

"Great... looks like some thief had been here before us."

I picked two at a time and slide them away on a corner, avoiding to trigger more dust, just to make a path to get across so I could get a better look on the shimmering small clear globe left displayed on the upper farthest shelf.

It's surprisingly dust-free for some reason so it caught my interest.

Unfortunately, as soon as I grab ahold of that trophy-like crystal stuck on the surface, the floor underneath me split open.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

My heart almost left my chest for a second, before my butt slammed over a hard wood.

The impact felt like a fraternity leader just spanked my bottom with a large pledge paddle with all they've got.

Moving from that seemed like hell on Earth and I remained sitting on a cracked cover till I realized a thin piece of wood was piercing my left thigh and was bleeding. "Ungh... hell no..."

"Amira? Are you alright?!" Lara called from above but I was still too shocked to respond. Catching a slight movement from the dried corpse underneath forced my ass to slide myself down, accidentally dragging my injured leg against it's face. "Holy shįt! I'll go get a rope!"

Oh no... if someone sees my blood here, I might get accused for kįlling whoever this was. What am I gonna do...? I thought as I scan the surroundings for an available exit but there was none. "Lara! Please hurry up! I'm bleeding!"

"Wait a sec! I'll just have to tie the rope to a door!" She replied and a few seconds later, she threw the other end towards my position. "Hold onto the knots and I'll pull you up!"

"Got it!" I never doubted her strength and ability since she's been doing this ever since she took over the business but getting my ankle somehow intertwined with the corpse's fingers along the way would definitely make it harder for her to save me.

So I had to kick it off of me. The cracking of that bone filled the narrow, dark, and humid room which sent shivers down my spine.

Fuck... if I survive this, I'll never do this again...

To be continued…